Mindful Eating: The Art of Presence While You Eat

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Joseph B. Nelson M.A., L.P.

Diabetes Behavioral Psychologist

: Endocrinol Diabetes Res

Abstract

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Mindfulness is a term that has become embedded in our everyday language. This concept has come to mean a general level of awareness or encouragement to someone to make conscious personal choices. Likewise, “mindful eating” encourages us to gain awareness of our eating choices and the experiences of those choices. Mindfulness is not a diet; there is no specific outcome expectation. Mindful eating is process-oriented and as a result can be used with any diet plan. Generally speaking all diets can be effective, but few are able to sustain behavior change to maintain the outcome. Mindful eating as an adjunct to diet encourages full moment by moment awareness of the process of eating and the effect the eating process is having on the individual. This clearly has been one of the most effective components of successful diets, that is, the individual’s level of committed awareness to following the plan closely. As long as they are maintaining their awareness the diet is likely to be effective. This practice encourages individual choice and continued awareness of the impact of each bite. Research reviews tend to be positive in connecting a mindful approach to diet and associated weight loss. However, research needs to be done to establish a correlation between mindful eating and resultant weight loss. This presenter practices mindfulness meditation and believes this to be a useful tool. This presentation will offer some practical tools to begin practicing mindful eating.

Biography

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E-mail: mindfuljoe@hotmail.commindfuljoe@hotmail.com